Low In Boundary at Hearst?
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Anonymous
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To me, the following is not so bad: If you are already driving, driving to Hearst is not so different from driving to Murch. It is the walkers close to the school that all this seems so unfair to:
My bet is that in the end they move the boundary shift back down to say Albemarle or Alton, and then turn around and move the Hearst border north on the other side of Connecticut. Either way, Murch's size is not sustainable. Similarly, I suspect that they will keep the small piece of Janney near that school at Janney, and instead shift a portion on the other side of Wisconsin. I feel a little for the boundary planners. Murch and Janney have boundaries that are a little "pie-shaped" with the wide part near the DC/MD border and the points close together; and it is the points that are the ones close to Hearst, hence switching families that are close to the other schools. |
Anonymous
Actually, people--or at least one person--are saying that Hearst is bad and they wouldn't want to send their kid(s) there. That's what gets Hearst parents annoyed or upset, particularly when the reasoning appears to be based on all those OOB kids, many of whom aren't white. |
Anonymous
| Please point to the message from a Murch parent saying that. |
Anonymous
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As a current Hearst parent, I'm sincerely curious as to what the hysterical Murch parent (I believe it's just one poster) thinks will happen to their child(ren) if they had to make a switch to Hearst (which they won't since it has been stated ad nauseum that these kids will be grandfathered in). There is no Boogeyman at Hearst. Hearst is a wonderful little school with a phenomenal community. However, there are anonymous people posting untruths about the school.
Here is a Truth: Hearst 4th graders outscored Murch 4th graders in both reading and math on the 2013 DC CAS. For the record, I do not believe test scores tell the whole story of any school, and certainly not at Hearst since it is very small. However, this is an indication that the school is on the rise and that people should dig a little deeper into the numbers before judging our students on the overall score. It's misleading. The principal, staff and parents have poured a tremendous amount of time, energy and resource into making Hearst a premier school. I believe you will see our test scores continue to rise across the board and compete with our neighboring schools. As another poster indicated, it was only a couple of years ago that Hearst was a PK-3 school. We have gone through some growing pains in recent years but if you walk through our halls, it is evident that that chapter is coming to a close. Our OOB families (of which at least 85% hail from Wards 4 & 1) are just as committed as our IB families. That's why no one is an outsider at Hearst. We do not have an IB/OOB issue. No one cares where you live at Hearst. We are all on the same team as are families at charters and privates which are also made up of students from all areas of the district. A community isn't defined only as a particular neighborhood. A community can also be made up of people with common attitudes, interests and goals. The latter describes Hearst where our families come in all colors, religions, and hail from every corner of the city with varying economic statuses, but are unified in our love for our children and our commitment to the school. |
Anonymous
It would make more sense to switch Janney to Hardy for a number of reasons. First, the transportation corridor is more logical with many 30 buses connecting the two schools. Second, from a geographic perspective Janney's boundaries are continuous to Mann which already feeds into Hardy, so a switch to Hardy would require less gerrymandering. |
Anonymous
I am one PP - I think there are multiple Murch posters above - Hearst seems like a fine school as I said above. Its OOB profile is not unlike Murch was when we started there with our oldest a few years ago. And diversity is part of what drew us to DCPS. But the change is inconvenient logistically and (this is the source of the strong feelings) it is being presented in the context of a confusing jumble of proposals that threaten Deal/Wilson feeder patters. If Hearst were 3 blocks from my house I would have no problem with it. But my house is 3 blocks from Murch. Does that clarify? |
Anonymous
| A good number of Janney students are within blocks of Deal, so that does not make sense. Literally, some are two blocks away. |
Anonymous
I wish school boundaries wouldn't have to change, but there is a lot of logic to this. In fact, some are proposing already using Wisconsin Ave. as the dividing line for Janney, such that students east of Wisconsin would get re-assigned to Murch or Hearst. Wisconsin could be a pretty simple division for middle school assignment, too, since basically all the elementary schools (except for Janney currently) feed to Hardy already. Those on the east of Wisconsin feed to Deal. If you have to shrink Janney's boundaries anyway to west of Wisconsin, then it's easiest to place Janney with all of the other west of Wisconsin schools. |
Anonymous
None of the proposals which maintain feeder patterns, have Janney, Murch, or Hearst switching to Hardy from Deal. This is a nonissue. |
Anonymous
But those students closest to Deal likely to be assigned to Murch or Heast in the future. |
Anonymous
The DME proposals, including on feeder patterns, are discussion documents so of course it makes sense to look at various boundary alternatives, if changes are necessary. |
Anonymous
No dog in this fight, but: Lafayette enrollment is going down as Murch's goes up; Lafayette is being renovated and enlarged before Murch; some IB Murch families actually live in Ward 4; some families drive to Murch, but could walk to Lafayette; there would be no East-West traffic issues as these families would not be using major commuter arteries to get to Lafayette, many of them are on the Lafayette side of Connecticut and always thought it odd that they were zoned for Murch instead; there is precedent for Murch housing Lafayette students during a prior Lafayette renovation, so Lafayette students have attended Murch in the past - the reverse is not outrageous. So it is really not that strange of an idea. |
Anonymous
Where do you get that information? |
Anonymous
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Lafayette Reno is schedule FY 2015 and 2016. Murch is scheduled FY 2016 and 2017.
Not that big of a difference. |
Anonymous
Wasn't talking about relative renovation dates. The point is that Lafayette is also an option for Murch's overcrowding, particularly for Murch houses closer to Lafayette. DCPS demographic projections are for continued decreased enrollment as the Lafayette neighborhood ages, which has already started (down to 689 with 85% in bound, where they've been over 700 in the past with in bound in the 90s) -- at the same time, the building is getting bigger starting next year. So there should be some room in the coming years to expand the boundary to include at least the Ward 4 people zoned for Murch. It should be considered. Lafayette is not shrinking as fast as Murch is growing, though, so it won't solve the whole problem. It could be another outlet though. |